It's a Traffic Jam

So many thoughts all jammed up in my head, and none of them are ready to come out. In the meantime I have added a widget to my earlier post reviewing Letters in My Head by Fleming & John which will allow you to hear the song in its entirety. If you've got a minute check it out.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to introduce you to another one of my favorite blogs mommyvsarmyof5. Christie always has funny anecdotes to share about life with her family stationed on a military base in Hawaii. She's also recently started a devotional blog that I haven't started to read yet. Take a look. She always makes me giggle. This week she writes about sending her twins to preschool for the first time. Exactly what sort of mischief could two little angels get into?

I Am Taking the Rest of the Week Off!

I'm just not feeling the blog this week, folks. I've been doing some personal writing, and trying to build up some endurance in that area, as I begin to realize that I cannot learn, or understand, or think particularly clearly without writing things down. Errors and misunderstandings that creep in when I'm working things out in my head often become apparent when I take the time to put my thoughts down. They become more objective and clearer somehow when that happens.

Check back on Monday to see if there is anything new. Until then, if you are looking for something to read, check out a couple of my favorite blogs:

Damon has been working on his organic gardening blog at Greenhorn Gardening. If you subscribe you will get an email delivered to your inbox each week, after an initial introductory set of emails each day for the first week. The latest email I received was about creating compost and fertilizer material using worms. Damon also posts a podcast to his blog each week, complete with helpful resources.

Unclutterer by Erin Doland is one of my favorite practical blogs. I haven't read her book by the same name yet, but her posts are always useful and informative. She answers clutter busting questions each week that are submitted by her readers; features an uncluttered workspace each week, also submitted by her readers and complete with full color photos; and her unitasker posts are always amusing. I find her to be a terrific resource for ideas on making changes to streamline your home and routine. Yesterday she shared a practical tool for making fun and exciting vacation plans. I don't know about you, but I was inspired by it.


That's it for this morning. If I get permission from the author in time, I will post another blog suggestion before the end of the week. Again, check back here on Monday to see what sort of inspiration strikes over the weekend.

Another Disclaimer about My Posting

Readers, I got carried away as usual and hit the Publish Post button when I mean to hit the Post Options button to schedule a delayed posting instead. Be warned. Tonight's post is tomorrow's post in disguise.

Excuses for What Could Turn Out to Be a Trying Week

I may be struggling to post anything to the blog this week. I have plenty of plans for posts, but my general health has not been conducive to writing recently. Sickness all week. Tension headache all day on Sunday.

Some time I'd like to: talk more extensively about the threatening nature of blogging; explain the reasons I don't sing anymore and my visceral response whenever I see a girl with significant musical ability; respond to the article that Lanier sent me in response to this post; talk about my great desire for accuracy in my speech, and where I suspect it comes from; compile some of the theory of reading for understanding that I've been encountering in Adler; and more.

Even though there is no shortage of ideas, and there is always a book or speech somewhere to respond to, my head isn't always in the right place to do the work. It certainly isn't in the right place today. Which scares me a little bit, though it probably shouldn't. Remember what I said last week about making mistakes but staying calm?

Here's my excuse, written in advance. It remains to be seen what comes of it.

A Bit of Metablogging to Jumpstart the Process

This is what I call "metablogging." It's basically writing about blogging, and the only way that I've ever been able to get started. When I first started this blog, back in the October after my now four year old son was born, I started with metablogging. I talked about how hard it was to get started, how hard it was to figure out what I should be writing about. Well, here I am, almost three years later, wondering how to get started. I've hardly been able to write at all since before my 21 month old son was born.
 I keep telling people: It's been hard to write even a basic email for months and months and months. My friend Alina assures me that it's the left-over hormones from pregnancy and breastfeeding that have done this to me. Ever since she told me that, I suppose I've used it as an excuse for not getting started. I've tried posting to the blog on numerous occasions, but I've been tired, or sleep-deprived, or maybe only too easily frustrated to get in there and do it.

I've tried writing things that weren't meant for publication. I've tried taking down my thoughts as they came to me. One morning I typed up a report of sorts concerning an experiment in prayer I was undertaking, but it all came to nothing.

A few days ago, my cousin, who is a successful freelance writer, posted something about a website where you can to post 750 words of freewriting. It's a tool for writers to sort of warm themselves up for the real work that is supposed to fill their day. I'm unwilling to subscribe to the service, because I have some unanswered questions about it, but the idea is imminently sound, and at some point I will probably succumb. It's the same sort of thing Peter Elbow promotes. Peter Elbow, whose book Everyone Can Write: Essays Toward a Hopeful Theory of Writing and Teaching Writing, I recently read, is a major advocate of the freewriting exercise, the premise being that successful writers need to do lots and lots of writing, not all of it anxiety ridden. He also argues that college students need low stakes outlets for writing, so that it becomes an habit and not merely an exercise in requirement. There are some lovely quotes from Elbow which I shared on facebook. Maybe I should go back and repost them here, where they can be read and remembered.

Note:  If you look back over my older posts you'll notice that the metablogging is always done in italics.  Something about that just makes me feel good.

Start and start and start again, and if I do it enough times maybe eventually it will stick

Wow, August 18 was the last time I posted anything.  You've got to wonder whether I have abandoned the effort entirely, like I've abandoned most of the housework this week, like I've abandoned my book club dream...except that you don't get to wonder about any of those things, because I've told you nothing (or next to nothing) about them.  I've gone so far as to change the name of my blog twice, but never far enough to write anything more than four lines long.


At this very moment, Parker is supposed to be napping, but isn't (he just started calling my name), and Isaac is crying because he doesn't care to take a nap today.  It's difficult to do anything under the circumstances that requires mindfulness or attention, and I'm surrounded by detritus, and that doesn't help.

I have five hobbies.  They are reading, writing, cross-stitch, exercise, and story viewing.  In most cases I can't do one and still find time for another.  Reading and exercise and viewing have recently taken up the majority of my free time.  I live in constant awareness that when I choose to spend my time on one thing I also choose not to spend my time on another.  Maybe someday after many trials, I will discover how to make it all work, but not today.

Explanations

When I do go online these days, it's usually to meet the needs of the moment. I check email to see if there's anything there I need to know. I check Facebook because, hey, it's addictive--but mostly just so I can update my Visual Bookshelf. If Parker is asleep or Michael's home I may play a quick game of Hidato or see if there's any new television online that falls under the category of "wannasee." I don't read much online, and I write very little of anything. Blogging has fallen off the priority list these last several months, as has Parker photography.

Will this change? I don't know yet. But it might.

Comment

Now that I'm feeling better (see previous post threatening bodily harm), please note that I've posted something new below the photos of Parker, a post I started earlier, but posted late, which is also the post that dispelled my momentary frustration of twenty moments ago.

Apathy, and My Question of the Day

I promised you the rest of the story today, but find that I'm not in the mood. Does lack of sleep always lead to apathy?

Several questions came to me in the night that I was going to pose, but I don't even remember what they were. Oh, yes, I just remembered one of them:

At what age did you let your children climb on the playground equipment and go down the slide entirely on their own? Did you let them start small and work their way up? How did they get the training they needed to do such an independent thing?

Sometimes Friends Help You Figure Things Out Without Even Realizing They're Doing So

I've been trying to write something about Baz Luhrmann for days now and it just hasn't been working, so I started reading a friends blog and I realized, if this isn't my week to write about Baz Luhrmann, I've just got to let it go. So I'll write about something else for a while.

Cathartic blogging

Yesterday I posted on how frustrated I was with our local public library. Doing so met and exceeded my expectations and I'll tell you why:

Because all afternoon I steamed over the fine I was made to pay. Hours later I was still heated up over it, but then I wrote yesterday's post. Having put my frustration down in writing, all of a sudden it didn't seem like such a big deal any more. As a matter of fact, as I mentioned, by the end of the evening I was fairly reconciled.

Now, you might argue that, this good work having been done, I might then delete the post from my blog, but I won't do that--because that post reveals something about me that you might otherwise miss. Sometimes I get frustrated, and frustration leads to evil thoughts, as well as decisions that are not entirely rational. This has to do with our humanity, and is a characteristic I would say all humans have in common.

I hope that I will never choose to publicly and irresponsibly complain against any individual on this blog, but institutions seem to me fair game.